Currently in NSW and Queensland, abortion is a crime for both the woman and the doctor.
NSW Greens MP Dr Mehreen Faruqi has today presented an abortion reform bill to Parliament, and is rallying her colleagues to support the full decriminalisation of the practice, so it can be struck from the NSW Crimes Act.
Dr Faruqi says that it’s an issue that NSW government has been avoiding ‘for 100 years’. The NSW Crimes Act 1900 still states (but includes the 1971 loophole that this is void if a doctor says the birth will damage the woman’s physical/mental health):
“Whosoever, being a woman with child, unlawfully administers to herself any drug or noxious thing, or unlawfully uses any instrument or other means, with intent in any such case to procure her miscarriage, shall be liable to imprisonment for ten years.”
IT IS 2016. TWO THOUSAND AND SIXTEEN. AND STILL WITH THIS CRAP.
Faruqi said this about her bill:
“This bill would make it clear that women have the right to make decisions about their own bodies. Decriminalising abortion is essential.Women and all people choosing to have an abortion as well as their doctors are not criminals and we need to remove the stigma and shame associated with it.”
The bill also requests to install the same 150m buffer zones that Victoria recently established, which stop religious groups who frequently stand outside pregnancy clinics from abusing the women who enter them.
Currently, this is what Australia looks like in regards to legal abortions:
QUEENSLAND & NEW SOUTH WALESIt’s only legal if a doctor believes the woman’s physical and/or mental health is in serious danger. Due to an amendment in NSW in 1995, ‘mental health’ now includes social and economic factors.AUSTRALIAN CAPTIAL TERRITORYIt has to be ‘provided by a medical doctor’.NORTHERN TERRITORYIt’s legal for women who are less than 14 weeks along. Plus, two doctors have to agree that the woman’s physical and/or mental health is endangered, or that the child will suffer severe foetal abnormalities.VICTORIAIt’s legal for women who are less than and including 24 weeks along. Past that, two doctors have to approve the surgery.SOUTH AUSTRALIANIt’s legal, but two doctors have to agree that the woman’s physical and/or mental health is endangered, or that the child will suffer severe foetal abnormalities.WESTERN AUSTRALIAIt’s legal for women who are less than and including 20 weeks along. It’s really restricted after that.TASMANIAIt’s legal for women who are less than and including 16 weeks. If the woman is more than 16 weeks, she must get approval from two doctors.
Dr Mehreen Faruqi presented the bill this morning. We will update this story as more information arises.
Source: SMH.
Photo: Greens.
